Fly Fly Birdie

I spent four months in Santa Cruz and fell completely in love with it and I didn’t want to leave. It felt like home, but I got a job offer to work on a movie on the east coast. On my last day, I took my surfboard out for a goodbye nod. The day was beautiful. The waves weren’t huge by any means, but there was still something there and a handful of surfers on the break. I paddled out and watched some of them catching their wave, effortlessly gliding along the water. I sat outside on the shoulder for a moment. The sky was clear blue and the mountains on the horizon near Monterey were showing up in a pastel purple. The air was cool and crisp. I sat on my board floating for a minute and took in all of the beauty. Looking down at the water below me I watched as the kelp forest swayed to and fro with the current. The ocean was a shade that wasn’t quite blue but wasn’t quite green. A seal popped his head up out of the water and looked around like a telescope on a submarine before disappearing again. A cormorant floated nearby watching me.

It began to sink in that this was really my last day. The last year flashed before my eyes like memories from a movie montage. Beginning with covid, so much unknown, fear and panic, changing everyones way of life and plans; driving my van “Birdie” across country from Alabama to San Francisco to visit my friends and begin the van conversion, leaving the sadness of change, trauma and heartache behind me to embark on a new journey of promise, healing and discovery. I planned to spend time with myself, my camera and my writing to find and focus on me again...trying to find my voice. Memories played of driving through wine country as the sun set on the grape fields through the leaves causing sunbursts of light to reflect into my lens; The quiet, cool, winding, dark forest roads through the redwoods…those trees like giant ancestors trying to whisper into my soul. I drove up and down the Washington, Oregon and California coast, through the Northern Cascades over to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I remembered standing on the edge of cliffs that dropped down into the raging ocean below, wind in my face. Sometimes during the day exuberant. Sometimes filled with loneliness crying into the dark night below.

I visited big cities during the riots and Covid in cities like Portland, Seattle and San Francisco. Later I visited LA, San Diego and Pheonix. I ate oysters and drank champagne in Washingtons Olympic National Park with my friend and her husband on her birthday. I can still feel my hands on the steering wheel weaving through mountain roads and listening to music with the windows down, wind blowing my hair. I plunged into my grief facing it head on in hope that it would finally leave me alone…and so I cried in the woods of the Cascades surrounded by mountains during three days of rain, no one around for miles. I watched the steam rise off of the river at sunrise in Yellowstone and many sunsets in Santa Cruz surrounded my beautiful, kind people. Along the way I met strangers that became new friends instantly and was embraced in the familiar warmth of old friends.

As I sat on my board remembering these moments, I was overtaken by gratitude. I have been through so much but I am also incredibly blessed. There’s been an overwhelming amount of chaos and pain this last year. People have died and many have lost everything. The sorrow of this is unfathomable and I by no means want to belittle that sorrow. In conjunction with this suffering there has also been beauty and growth for many. We have found new patterns and new ways of living that ultimately simplified many of our lives and made us happier than we thought we could be, because we were too busy to pay attention before. Impossible things became possible.

I can’t ignore the fact that there is always light where there is dark. Sometimes it takes awhile to wade through it before we can see it. Sometimes it’s still working with us and we have to be patient and remember that things don’t last forever, nothing is permanent and there is always another day coming. There is a plan-a big, beautiful, majestic, chaotic plan that we know nothing about. If we trust the process and are patient we can watch it unfold with faith that we are exactly where we need to be and heading towards our destination.

The tears fell from my cheeks into the ocean below and I gave them as an offering. I am so full of gratitude for my past year. I am thankful for the pain because it allowed me to heal-in ways I didn’t even know I needed. It gave me strength to watch and learn about myself. The time and space grieving allowed me to form a better relationship with myself, with this planet and fellow humans. I am so grateful for the beauty of this earth. I am thankful for the quiet I have been able to immerse myself in and the chance to see this majestic side of the US. I am beside myself at the way so many have welcomed me along the way. I have no doubt that in my darkest hours and my most uplifting moments, I was where I was supposed to be-down to the second.

My van life journey now coming to a momentary pause, it was time to say goodbye to my Santa Cruz family and this little section of water that had become my refuge. It felt so bittersweet. It was time to drive across country again-literally, from California to North Carolina inside of two weeks. I was looking forward to driving through Alabama on the way to see my friends and family that I hadn’t seen in a year. First, stopping in Arizona to run up a mountain for a half marathon with my best friend for her birthday-a fitting finale to this years adventures.

I took a deep breath, wiped the tears from my cheeks, said thank you and turned to paddle in. I was almost back to the shore when I glanced to make sure there wasn’t a wave sneaking up on me and saw someone paddling quickly behind me and coming towards me smiling. It took me a minute to focus and gather myself before I recognized him. “Hey! You going in? I just came out here to find you.” “Yeah. I was,” I said. “Well, I’m not letting you go in until you catch one more with me. Come on!” He flashed a smile as he turned to paddle back out, looking over his shoulder to make sure I was following. I turned my board and headed out once more.

Thank you to everyone who has followed my journey and supported me. I'm not done yet, so stay tuned for more adventures and more posts

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